“I don’t know if it actually worked, but working with Harold is great. I think it turned out more like four songs that sounded like us and four songs that sounded like him, which wasn’t really the plan. We met him and he just seemed like such a nice bloke. I don’t care about the music he makes or the music that any of the people I work with make, because quite often it’s that you meet them and you like them, and therefore you want to do something. I like Harold because of his very laid-back nature.” Robin Guthrie
“As musicians, I found them immensely interesting people to work with. And in spite of my inclination to work alone, it’s great to get into the studio with someone else and pick each other’s brains—very satisfying.” Harold Budd
The Moon and the Melodies
- November 1986
- 4AD
- CAD 611
- 37 min, 24 sec
Track listing
- Sea, Swallow Me
- Memory Gongs
- Why Do You Love Me?
- Eyes are Mosaics
- She Will Destroy You
- The Ghost Has No Home
- Bloody and Blunt
- Ooze Out and Away, Onehow
Formats
- Vinyl
- Cassette
- CD
- Digital
Performers
Release notes
- All songs written and produced by Budd, Guthrie, Raymonde, Fraser.
- Richard Thomas plays saxophone on tracks 5 & 6 and drums on track 7 courtesy of Dif Juz.
- Art direction, design and photography by 23 Envelope.
- The track “Memory Gongs” was later released on Harold Budd’s LP Lovely Thunder under the title “Flower Knife Shadows.”
- “Sea, Swallow Me” appeared on live set lists in 1986.
- The song title “Bloody and Blunt” is borrowed from a lyric in the Head Over Heels song “The Tinderbox (of a heart),” and the song title “Ooze Out and Away, Onehow” is from a lyric in the song “My Love Paramour,” also from Head Over Heels.
- Robin Guthrie went on to collaborate with Harold Budd on several other projects—film scores for the Gregg Araki films Mysterious Skin (2004) and White Bird in a Blizzard (2014), as well as the albums Before the Day Breaks (2007), After the Night Falls (2007), Bordeaux (2011), Winter Garden (2011), and Another Flower (2020).
Listen and buy online
Video
“Sea, Swallow Me,” Live in Paris, November 1986.
Press
- Cocteau Twins featured on Spotify’s ‘Bandsplain’ podcast
- NEWS | 16-Sep 2021
- “Six Definitive Songs: The ultimate beginner’s guide to Cocteau Twins”
- Far Out | Jul 2021
- Harold Budd, Iconic Ambient Composer, Has Died
- Rolling Stone | 8-Dec 2020
- “Vocalisations”
- Making Music | Jul 1987
- “That Which Cannot Be Spoken: Divining the Heavenly Sound of Cocteau Twins”
- Option: Music Alternatives | May/Jun 1987
- “None of This Should Have Happened”
- Q | Apr 1987
- Review of The Moon and The Melodies
- Only Music | Mar 1987
- “The Cocteau Twins”
- Only Music | Mar 1987
- “Budd-y Can You Spare a Chime?”
- Record Mirror | 06-Dec 1986
- “A British Trio Creates Haunting Melodies”
- Detour | Dec 1986
- “A Method in Their Madness”
- | 15-Nov 1986
- “Love and Misery in the Cocteau Twins”
- Record Mirror | 15-Oct 1986
- “The Serpent and the Pearl: An Interview with Harold Budd”
- Electronics & Music Maker | 1-Jul 1986